Re: [PLUG] SSD & HDD Partition Plan Suggestions

[Austin Murphy <austin.murphy@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 6:27 AM, Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:
> I'm planning on upgrading my desktop system to add an SSD and am looking for
> suggestions from this august group to maximize system speed.
> ...

I would say you have the right idea.

Linux makes all kinds of disks appear faster by using lots of RAM as a
"buffer cache."  On boot, the buffer cache is completely cold so the
excellent random read performance of SSDs makes a big difference.
Once the buffer cache is warmed up, much of the benefit of the SSD is
gone.  One exception is when writes are instructed to bypass the
buffer cache and go directly to disk.  That's good for data integrity,
but bad for performance.  An SSD will make it faster.

I would also consider putting /var and /tmp on the SSD. Both should be
pretty small. The dot-directories in your home dir would also benefit
from being on faster disk.  Pretty much the only thing I would say to
not put on the SSD are large directories full of seldomly accessed
data.  Download directories, music libraries, archives.

You may also want to leave a few GB un-allocated on the SSD.  SSDs
need scratch space to work efficiently and some manufacturers don't
leave enough outside the stated capacity.  If space gets tight, the
SSD slows down considerably while it rearranges things.

Austin
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